Philip Scheltens

Philip Scheltens was born in Dordrecht, Netherlands, where he grew up in a family of four. His father led a factory and played an active role in the local society. His grandfather developed Alzheimer’s disease in those years, which made an important impression on his grandson. Philip attended the Christelijk Lyceum, where he graduated in 1976. As a teenager he was an enthusiastic drummer in several bands and fostered a fascination for science and mechanics.

After his graduation, he studied medicine at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, while working night hours as a portiere in a famous Amsterdam nightclub, where he met many Dutch celebrities. He obtained his medical degree in 1984 and started his career in neurology. During his PhD he developed MRI criteria to score hippocampus atrophy for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Scheltens’ work has changed the way Alzheimer’s disease is diagnosed. While diagnosis used to be based on specific signs and symptoms and exclusion of treatable causes, he was the first to add MRI criteria for hippocampal atrophy, associated with Alzheimer’s’ disease in the 1990s, which improved the diagnostic classification of this type of dementia and fueled development of new diagnostics.

He was one of the first in the Netherlands to start a dementia clinic and started the Amsterdam Dementia cohort, currently the largest collection of clinical and biomarker data. This enabled him to initiate, together with colleagues, new diagnostic research criteria for Alzheimer’s disease based on the presence of a clinical phenotype and the presence of amyloid, as reflected in cerebrospinal fluid. This change from a phenomenological, purely symptom driven, diagnosis to a diagnosis based on biomarkers greatly enhanced sensitivity and specificity. Higher diagnostic precision is the crucial step to develop effective therapy, as patients with homogeneous underlying pathology can be included for therapeutic trials targeting the causative mechanism. The new protein-based diagnostic criteria he fathered are now implemented for trials worldwide and the first hopeful results have emerged.

Scheltens has improved societal awareness and acceptance of dementia, and prioritized dementia among the top necessities on the Dutch and European research agenda. He initiated a large scientific and societal action plan to improve prevention, treatment and care for dementia in the Netherlands, entitled Deltaplan Dementie in 2012, which has already supported a large number of research projects on dementia, increased societal awareness and improved health care for dementia patients.

1991–present: Staff neurologist

2000–present: Full Professor of (Cognitive) Neurology

2000–present: Director of the Alzheimer Centre, VU University Medical Center Amsterdam.

2008–present: Management team Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam

2013–present: vice-chair Board of Directors Dutch “Deltaplan Dementie” (2013-2021).

Co-editor-in-chief of the series: Current Issues in Neurodegenerative Disorders

Member editorial board Dementia Geriatric Cognitive Disorders, Alzheimer’s Disease &

Associated Disorders, Int J geriatric Psychiatry, J NeuroImaging,

Chief Editor supplement to Dementia Geriatr Cogn Disord entitled ‘White matter disease’

Associate editor of J Neurol Neurosurgery Psychiatry

Co-editor-in-chief, Alzheimer's Research & Therapy

2012–present Member Supervisory Board Hersenstichting Nederland

2012-2015 Member International Scientific Program Committee AAIC

Member Scientific Advisory Council ISTAART

2013–present Member of the jury of the BRAIN PRIZE (Grete Lundbeck Foundation)

2015–present Member Program Committee EAN annual conference

2015–present Board member Dutch Academy of Science and Arts (KNAW)